Visions go to the seaside

A weekend away for a coastal photography trip

On a weekend in October 2025 a small group of Visions photographers travelled to Berwick upon Tweed which would be our base for the next few days. After arriving on the Firday there was no time to waste as we had a packed schedule. Dave Lynch in conjunction with his favourite app Photopills had scouted out locations and sunsets, moon rises and sunrises.

Locations and schedule.

Bridge to Nowhere

First stop at the Bridge to Nowhere which at high tide really does go to nowhere. It was clear and windy, very windy. A sturdy tripod needed and large spikes help too.

Getting ready to shoot the Bridge to Nowhere by Fiona Dyas

Several of us used neutral density filters to allow us to do long exposures. It helps to smooth the choppy water a bit or a lot depending on how long you exposed. Not owning one of those 10 stoppers I tried taking a lot of shots and hoping I could average them in Photoshop later to get the same effect. It didn’t quite work as well as I hoped, basically because each individual shot I used had too short a shutter speed.

*The Bridge – Fiona Dyas* *(neutral denity filter used to smooth the waves)*

*The Bridge in a glass sphere – Fiona Dyas*

*The bridge in black and white by Mark* Bisset

Bass Rock and the moonrise

Our next location was on the coast near Bass rock to get the moon rise next to the rock. It was still windy, but clear so we had a good chance to capture the moon rising. It requires a longish lens to get the moon large enough, say 200 to 400 mm. That also means Bass Rock will fill the frame. Dave and Photopills worked out the location and the time. We had found somewhere to park the car off the main road and only a short distance to walk to the photo spot.

The plan in action.

You have to move fairly fast to the left to keep both the rock and the moon in the shot, once it appears above the horizon. The light was also fading fast making the rock too dark relative to the bright moon. So exposure bracketing was needed for the later shots.

You can see that the first shot is correct for Bass Rock, but the moon is way overexposed. The last two have the correct exposure for the moon but of course now the rock is far too dark. Then Dave combined those 5 shots to HDR in Lightroom:

*Combined in Lightroom – images by Dave Lynch*

Saturday morning – Sunrise at Berwick Lighthouse

Sunrise was at 7:31 but it was not far too travel to the location, as we stayed only a few hundred metres from the shore line. Mark had chosen not to join the small herd, but instead had walked out to the pier. In fact not all of us got up early enough to see the sun come up, but I won’t name any names.

Photopills planning by Dave, and some of the participants on the shoot.

*First sunlight on the houses of Berwick* – *Dave Lynch*

It is always so much fun to see how everyone comes back with very different images from more or less the same location.

A slide from Dave’s post shoot review, and those bacon rolls were pretty good!

Next stop on Saturday – Lindisfarne

The light was not great to start with but as they say, if you wait long enough it will change and it did!

Lindisfarne can be reached via a causeway during low tide which on the day was from about 10-16:00. As it was a Saturday the car park filled up quickly and it took a bit of effort to avoid getting too many people in the photos.

*The causeway. There is an alternative shorter route by foot. For those foolish enough to get caught by the incoming tide the are rescue huts on stilts.*

Lindisfarne – Mark Bisset

*In Camera Double exposure – Fiona Dyas*

Photos from Lindisfarne – Rob

Lindisfarne – Fiona Dyas

*That would be four identical shots* *then*

Images from Lindisfarne – Dave Lynch

Location scouting

Not all of us stayed in the conveniently located Premier Inn: a camper van, a luxury B&B and lodging with a friend were the other options.

A bit of scouting for the best location was done at Bamburgh Castle by part of the group while Andy and I had a stroll around the lovely town of Berwick upon Tweed.

*Location scouting for tomorrow’s sunrise – Lynda Gordon*

*Location scouts at Bamburgh Castle – L to R Linda, Mark, Sue, Lynda and Dave* – DL

Berwick town

Andy and I walked around the town while the others were scouting out locations at Bamburg Castle. Interesting and colourful buildings and a lovely path alonmg the river Tweed with 3 bridges.

Berwick town late afternoon – Rob Romani

Berwick at night – Dave Lynch

Sunday on the way back to Aberdeen

A few more stops were made on the way back from Berwick Upon Tweed.

Cove Harbour

A small harbour which is privately owned and has been used for various movie shots. Even pretending to be in Greece.

Next stop – Seacliff Beach

Some haar coming in from the sea changes the scenery.

*A different perspective on Bass Rock – Mark Bisset*

*And then the haar reached the beach – Mark Bisset*

We had an East Lothian evening where we reviewed our collective hoard of images. Dave ended this with a fun Compositional Bingo competition. A selection of images was shown, all chosen to have one or more of the compositional rules. We had to mark when we spotted one that was on our card. Great fun!

I think we all had a great weekend down along the east coast, I certainly did. Looking forward to next years trip! Thanks to Dave for organising and planning the locations.

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